Minnesconsin Trip

It was a pretty good weekend for me. I had a lot going on. Thursday afternoon I headed back up to Minnesota. I called it a work trip, and I actually stopped in at my bridge in Prescott to look things over. That was Thursday night, then I stayed with Borky. We had a couple beers and played some ping pong. Friday I had to help my friend, Flo, deal with a stalker, then I headed back to Eau Claire to drop off some paper work from my Prescott Bridge project. I drove back to Minnesota and watched the Simpson's Movie. Friday night I went to a play at the Gutherie Theater in Minneapolis with my friends, Flo and K.O. Saturday I head breakfast with Flo and Borky and then eventually Borky and I made our way over to Myra's for the boat party. We got there early and had our four man fantasy football draft. Not much of a chance of me losing that league. We had the boat party that night. Good times were had by all. Sunday morning I headed over by Krum and then Krum and I had a 2 hour lunch with Kaker. Next time we need Justus to be present for the meeting.
As I mentioned earlier had to deal with Flo's stalker. Flo called me Thursday morning and told me the story how this guy has been harassing her when she walks around the lake near her house. She asked me to confront him, and while I was doing so, Flo took a couple pictures. I hope it helped but after speaking with him, I quickly learned he is far off center. Hopefully she won't have to get a restraining order, but I wouldn't rule it out.Friday night Flo and I took the light rail downtown to K.O.'s place. We had dinner then went to the Gutherie for the play. This is the three of us out on K.O.'s balcony.During intermission of the play we went outside. From this balcony you can see where the 35W bridge collapsed. The play was called Private Lives, and one of the lead actors was the girl who played Toby in a Seinfeld episode, she was the red head who heckled Jerry on stage and then had her pinkie toe cut off.After the fantasy football draft at Myra's and before the boat party, we started playing drinking games. I invented card stacking for drinks. My aunt would love this game, after you place a card, you get to take a drink of Boones Farm. But if you knock the card house over, you have to slam half a beer. Here I am on the boat with Myra. Towards the end of the boat ride, I was talking to some people at the back of the boat. I noticed that the bar back continued coming back to a refrigerator and pulling out 6 packs of beer. I finally put two and two together and opened the fridge and found a bottle of Baileys in there. I took me and about 5 friends less than 10 minutes to finish off that bottle. What else to you expect from me, drinks were $5 a piece. Then again Borky and I brought flasks on board to save money. Cheap or a thinker? Remember I paid for breakfast at Perkins.Friday I had two dates for the play, Flo and K.O. and Saturday I had two dates on the boat, Heidi and Margaret.
After three hours of touring the lake we came back into dock, here I am at the end of the night with Captain Hank.Back at Myra's after the boat party we started doing keg stands. I am sure I had the longest time
Borky Bortke and Liz Bortke.
Doug struggling with the realization that the party is over.Here is your first sign that the world is coming to an end. It was the end of the party, and there must have been at least 10 people in the room and Eric and Flo just start making out on the chair in front of everyone. Hell called and they said it is snowing.
Myra passed out at the table at Perkins after the boat party.
Here is just a picture I took of Krum's place before we headed out to lunch with Kaker.

Picture of the Day

This picture is from long long ago. Soccer my senior year. Back in 1991.

Here is the latest

This will be highly unexciting for you, but you are the one who came here to read about me. This weekend I am headed up to Minnesota for Myra's boat party. I think this is the 3rd year in a row. Myra rents out a boat and about 50 of us or so cruise around on like Minnetoka. It is just like the Minnesota Vikings boat cruise without the strippers or professional athletes. I am also taking my beloved truck in for a tune up. Over the years it has taken a toll. But is still running like a champ. Although I have a feeling that this tune up will be a bit expensive. Especially since this is the first tune up I have had in the last 100,000 miles. Looking ahead to next weekend, it could be one of the best weekends of the year. I am planning on being at Alpine Valley all weekend. Krum is coming down to see Rage Against the Machine on Friday night. I told him I would go with him and look for a ticket to scalp. Then on Saturday and Sunday I am at Alpine for Dave Matthews with The General and the Twins. Like I said pretty unexciting. Here is a picture for you. Speaking of Dave Matthews, here I am with The General and Nate. I believe this is after the show. I think this was 3 or 4 years ago.

Dog Days of Summer

Are you guys sick of summer yet? I know I am not. Although we are on the cusp of my favorite season, fall. The weather is just perfect, football season is ramping up. And I have already started planning out my weekends for the fall. I am going to try to get a lot of football in this year. My cousin, Mike, plays for Whitewater, I would like to make it to at least two or three of those games. I also want to make it to one or two Badger games. Make it to Madison at least once a year for a Badger game, but I actually haven't made it into the game in at least three years. I am seriously considering heading up to Minneapolis when the Badgers are in town there. Now that I am living in Appleton, Lambeau field isn't more than a 20 minute drive from my condo. So I would like to get there and scalp a ticket to a game or two.

My weekend wasn't all that exciting, I spent most of it with my brother, Jon's, family. I held soccer practice with his kids Saturday and Sunday morning. I was also able to stop by my parents, my sister's place and see Nate, Michel and Elery. Here is a random old picture for you to gaze upon.

This picture was taken at Multnomah Falls in Oregon. I don't even recall when this was. I know it was when I was working for Merge Technologies. They sent me out there for business for a couple days. As I recall I finished up early and headed up to Portland to hang out with Browny.

Jumping Over My Nephews

Here is an unusual posting. I am taking time out of my busy weekend schedule to entertain you, my loyal blog readers. Actually as you know I have nothing going on this weekend. But Friday I was at my brother's house. Here are some pictures of me jumping over my nephews, Nick and Ethan. These four are me jumping over Ethan. Julie took these pictures.

This is me going over the top of Nick. With my advancing age and the fact that Nick is growing like a weed, this might be the last time I am able to leap over him.

35W

Someone asked me to comment on the 35W tragedy. Actually a number of people have asked me my opinion on how the bridge collapsed. From what I have seen, the design of the bridge is fine structurally as long as both ends of the bridge are securely anchored into its abutments, but as you can see from the video, once the bridge is required to sustain itself without what would be called support in the x direction, it quickly collapses. And what caused the initial collapse. My best guess, a small connection or joint somewhere along the bridge weakened and failed. (The major contributor would probably be salt from icing the roads in the winter time infiltrating cracks in the concrete and eating away at the steel bar reinforcement which at the time of construction was not coated with exopy as all bars today are.) This failure resulted in stress and forces that that connection or joint was supporting, being taken up by the next closest connection or joint. The added stresses and forces on this next connection or joint caused that connection or joint to fail. This went on and on until a number of these connections or joints failed and led to the bridge to collapse. Much the same way the World Trade Center collapsed. It took me a while to mentally picture where exactly this bridge was. In my days shortly after college when I lived with Krum, Brown and Little Buddy, I can recall I would go running with Russ and Marty, not on this bridge but on a smaller bridge over the Mississippi River right next to this bridge. I have been told that the I-35w Bridge was the most heavily traveled bridge in the state of Minnesota. Being a former Minnesotan and having a number of friends in the area, obviously I was concerned. No one I know was injured in the collapse. I do know many people who now have to deal with daily commutes that quickly jumped form 10 minutes to 1 hour and 10 minutes. Borky told me that he drove over the bridge about a half an hour before it collapsed. And he was suppose to meet a buddy but decided against it or he might have been driving back over it when it collapsed. To which I say, if Borky wasn't such a loser, he might be dead. I can assure you of this, my last bridge project in Prescott, WI, there was no work done structurally to the bridge at all. And as far as the bridge here in Appleton, WI where I am currently working. I have reviewed and personally inspected the bridges main girders, the only part of the structure that is remaining, several times and found it safe for vehicle travel. I hope.

Here we go again

Well I am back to having nothing to write about. I used up all of my stories from the past two weekends. Right now all I have to look forward to is this weekend. Of which I don't have much of anything planned. I will be back down in Milwaukee this weekend. Friday night I am scheduled to help my brother hook up his new TV. Over the course of the weekend, I am planning on stopping by Justus' place and kicking the crap out of him on the ping pong table. When I am done with him, he will be beat so bad that he walks with a limp. If anyone has anything exciting going on Saturday night, let me know.

Worst Movie of All Time

This past weekend, I didn't have much going on. I stayed in Appleton, because after four days with the Shermans they wore me out. Actually I am not sure about that statement. It was more that I was running a sprint and they were running a marathon. So we paced ourselves a little differently. Anyhow, I needed the weekend to recover from Eagle River.

Saturday I went to see Hot Rod. I saw a preview for it and I thought it looked amusing. It was horrible. A 0 on a scale of 1-10. My first clue should have been when I walked into the theater and I was the only one there. Don't go see this movie, don't rent it, in fact you should stop talking to be me for being so dumb to even pay to see this movie. Remove yourself as far away from this movie as possible. This movie make "Dude, Where's Your Car?" look like an Oscar winner.

Eagle River

I think people have been waiting for this one. As mentioned before, it was a long eventful weekend for me. After Josh's Birthday party on Friday, I went to a Shrimp Boil and the Jimmy Buffett concert at Alpine Valley Saturday. Sunday night I played my last soccer game for the summer. We won, and our team finished in second place in the league with a record of 5-1-2. Right after the game I headed up to Eagle River. My uncle Dave, Aunt Marilyn and their kids (Justin, Kim, Mike) along with their kids significant others (Katie, Jake, Katie) rented out a cabin for the week and invited me to come up and stay with them for a while. I didn't get in until late Sunday night around 11:30. Before I go any further I would like to state that I am a bad influence and an instigator. I showed up and things were pretty mellow. A couple of people were sleeping and drinking soda and water. That quickly turned to the radio cranked, beer bongs flowing, bottles of Boone's Farm wine passed around, fire roaring and things didn't die down until 5 in the morning. The next couple of days were all the same. I would wake up in the mid morning and get in a swim across the lake. If I am going to drink that much, I need to be doing something positive for my body everyday. Then we would go on a Booze Cruise on the pontoon boat. Probably the best part of the day. Just cruising around the lakes, when we got hot, we would stop the boat and jump in. Stop at a bar for a drink or food. We would get back in the evening and then hit the water sports. Either water skiing or tubing. I wanted to go so badly but I know with my bad shoulders and alcohol mixed together, I would do something stupid and end up in the hospital. On the first night we got back from skiing and I went to make myself a drink, I opened up freezer for ice and they had a couple of bottles of booze in there. I grabbed a bottle of Hot Sex and started going around to everyone and making them do shots. I was shocked at how easy it was to get everyone to do a shot. Their was absolutely no fight in any of them. It was pretty much the same whenever I filled up the beer bong. We played this reaction game. I said when you lost you had to do a shot. Everyone agreed. The entire time I was up at the cabin, I would just make a rule and everyone followed it. Most of it was drink related. One night we all sat down and played poker. I said if anyone helped out anyone else, mostly the guys giving the girls advice on if they should bet or fold, that they had to eat a spoon full of taco meat because we made 5 lbs of it. Sure enough, Dave ended up eating a big spoon full. Anyhow, after skiing we would eat dinner. Then play some cards, eventually making our way down to the fire pit. This is where the stories started flying. My favorite story of the weekend was about Dave. In his younger days, he had a Firebird that he used to beat on quite a bit. One day the transmission just went out on it as he was leaving work. Or at least when he put it in drive the engine just red line but he didn't go anywhere. Oddly enough, reverse worked fine. So Dave followed one of his co-workers in reverse from Palmyra to Lake Waterville. He said he was up to 50 miles per hour in reverse. As the fire continued to roar, I broke out a couple bottles of Boone's Farm wine. Borky turned me on to this the last time I went camping with him. It tastes like soda, but it doesn't have much alcohol in it, so when it was 1/3 gone, I fueled it up a little with absolute vodka. For Marilyn this brought back memories as she had taken in a bottle of the Boone's from time to time in her past. She was rather protective of the bottle got passed around. On to the pictures. This is Monday after the Booze Cruise. Check it out Tree, shirt is off and I am flexing. I think I was flexing in nearly every picture taken of me. How that is different from any other picture I pose for, I don't know. This is me, C.W.W., 73 and Pinto Bean. When I got there Sunday night they mentioned to me how everyone had a nickname. I ended up changing half of those nicknames.Bassman and C.W.W.Here I am spiking the Boone's Farm.C.W. taking a healthy pull off of the Boone's.My parents were up for one day. They brought Nick and Ethan. Me and my dad. I am flexing and sporting a Mohawk that I fashioned out of sun screen because I am going bald.Pocahontas with the spread eagle dive off the boat.C.W.W. and C.W. Initially Dave was "The Chief" and Marilyn was C.W. for Chief's wife. But somehow over the course of week "The Chief" started calling himself C.W.W. and I don't know what that stands for.Frog Dive off the front of the boat.Bassman cracking open a fresh bottle of Jim Beam. That is TB or Tom Brady behind.Pinto Bean and 73.
Me and 73.We had a little chicken fighting going on. I still say Ethan and I won.Group shot from the water.I know the Shermans are regular readers of the blog. I just wanted to thank you for inviting me along and letting me spend time with you on your family vacation. I sincerely appreciate it. I had so much fun. You guys can party hard. Actually you went much harder than I expected. If you ever need a 9th wheel please don't hesitate to call me up.

Shrimp Boil and Jimmy Buffett

I have been spacing out my postings so I can get you something new every day.
Last Saturday was a full day for me as well. I went out by Chris and Rebecca for their family's annual Shrimp Boil. It is just amazing food. I stick to the two main staples, sweet corn and shrimp. Throughout the day I am sure I must have hammered down at least 100 shrimp. Last year at the Shrimp Boil, I got assigned the task of arranging the brackets for the horseshoe tournament. I was again in charge this year, but I came prepared with a bracket sheet all made out. I left the Shrimp Boil around 6:30 p.m. to go to the Jimmy Buffett concert. As mentioned in a previous posting, I made some fake tickets to use after entering the concert to make my way into the reserve seating. I went to the concert with Eric, Doug, Lisa, Lynn and Andrea. All of us got into reserve seats without a problem. But Lynn and Andrea were the only ones who could keep up with me for most of the concert. We were perched about 30 -35 rows back from the stage. For the encore, I managed to make it all the way down to the 5th row. I just wish they would allow cameras in so that I could show you the pictures. After the show, I headed back to Chris and Rebecca's to set up my tent in the yard and ate some more shrimp. Here are a couple of the pictures, I wish I had taken more at the Shrimp Boil. Sorry Butch, I should have brought my camera to breakfast for you birthday breakfast. Rebecca tossing a shoe in the tourney. You can see Butch, Rebecca's dad, in the background in the blue shirt and jeans. Butch ended up winning the tournament. Here is Angela with the tournament bracket, she was my lovely assistant.

Josh's Birthday

It has been a while since I have made a posting. But I have had a lot going on. And I have a ton of pictures. This is good because it will give me something to write about. Last Friday we celebrated my nephew, Josh's, birthday. In the afternoon, I stopped at my parents house. My nephews, Nick and Ethan were there. Here you can see me with the newest game I have invented, it is also not approved by any parent. It is called scooter dodge ball. Here I am at Sussex Bowl where we had the birthday party. Madonna was on the radio and I am Vogueing. Here are all of my nieces and nephews enjoying their pizza.
Josh blowing out his birthday cupcake.
The birthday boy bowling. After we ate, all of the kids bowled, and I bowled with them. I came in third place behind Abbigail in first place and Ethan in second place.
Here is the present that I got Josh. It was a rocket, but I wrapped it up in a refrigerator box. Here is a little tip out there for all of you parents, aunts and uncles. Kids love big presents, even if it is just something small inside. It is pretty easy, just stop at any furniture store and ask them if they have any extra boxes. I had the rocket inside the box, then filled it with balloons, duct taped the sides down, wrapped it up in wrapping paper, then tied it up with twine. It took somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 minutes to open. My goal was for Josh to get so frustrated that he just finally gave up on opening the present. But that didn't happen. Plus kids like playing in the box usually more than the present.
Here I am flexing while bowling.
While I was bowling with the kids, I was screwing around quite a bit as I am sure you can imagine. A lot of seeing how many times I can hit the bumpers and throwing most of the balls with my left hand. During the game my brother in law, Tim, came up and asked me if he could throw a ball. I told him "If you wanted to play, you should have signed up." He retorted with "You don't play, you bowl." After the game with all of the kids was over, I took Tim on. Since he bowls every other week, we agreed upon giving me an extra 33 pins. I came out of the gate quickly and was up after 4 frames. But then Tim started to turn it on and hit 4 strikes in a row. Here is Tim celebrating his 4th strike. Tim ended up beating me 180 to 140. But all in attendance found it to be a highly entertaining match. Towards the end of the party, I threw all of the kids in the refrigerator box to grab this picture.